


At the Fork in the Road

by weasleytook



Category: Big Bang Theory
Genre: Alternate Universe, Apocalypse, Big Bang Challenge, F/M, Humor, Romance, Time Travel, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-27
Updated: 2010-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-11 06:44:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weasleytook/pseuds/weasleytook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An average Wednesday. A caramel macchiato. A pair of broken glasses. All of those tiny moments add up, and sometimes they cause Penny to accidentally invent inter-dimensional travel and take Sheldon with her. Those little moments can change the entire course of one's life, places both new and old, moments both good and bad. Will what they see change them forever? If they even get back at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** Special thanks must be given to [](http://twofourteen.livejournal.com/profile)[**twofourteen**](http://twofourteen.livejournal.com/) for beta reading, to [](http://d-sieya.livejournal.com/profile)[**d_sieya**](http://d-sieya.livejournal.com/) for the conversation that sparked this silly idea, to [](http://dashakay.livejournal.com/profile)[**dashakay**](http://dashakay.livejournal.com/) for the initial ass-kicking back when I had only written 400 words, and to [](http://courtney-beth.livejournal.com/profile)[**courtney_beth**](http://courtney-beth.livejournal.com/) for her encouragement throughout the process and her OMFG AMAZING FANMIX. You four ladies are just wonderful human beings. ♥

  
I.

_This web of time -- the strands of which approach one another, bifurcate, intersect or ignore eachother through the centuries -- embrace every possibility._

\- Jorge Luis Borges, "The Garden of Forking Paths"

*

It was a Wednesday. Like any other Wednesday. She woke up, showered, brushed her teeth, grabbed a Pop Tart out of the cabinet and ate it without toasting it.

There was nothing special about this Wednesday when it started. Not until Leonard called and asked for a favor.

Penny's grandma used to say one moment, one tiny and seemingly mundane moment, can change the path of your entire life.

In the years that would follow this particular Wednesday, Sheldon would blame the caramel macchiato.

But if there hadn't been a phone call from Leonard, there wouldn't have been a caramel macchiato to blame.

*

She could recognize his tall lean figure from all the way down the hallway at CalTech. Penny held tightly to the Starbucks cup in her hand as she jogged to catch up with him, ice clattering away in the cup the entire time. When she was about a foot behind him, she hopped so that she was at his side and Sheldon jumped in surprise.

"Penny? What are you doing here?"

"Oh, I thought I'd change careers. Become a scientist. It's not that hard, right?"

Sheldon stopped in his tracks so fast she could practically smell the rubber burning on the bottom of his shoes. "I don't need to ask. That's definitely a joke."

He said he didn't need to ask, but he paused part way through his sentence in a way that made her think he was still unsure about it.

"Yes, it's a joke. Leonard broke his glasses and he asked me to get his spare from your apartment. So that's why I'm here. So… where are you going?"

Sheldon took a step backwards and closer to the door behind him that was marked 'Lab 408 – Authorized Personnel Only'.

"Lunch is over. I'm going back to work."

Penny took a sip of her drink and looked at him suspiciously. "Yeah. But isn't your office on the other side of the cafeteria? What are you doing over here?"

Sheldon tilted his head and one eye began twitching as he said, "Nothing. Nothing at all."

They stared each other down silently and Sheldon finally broke by digging his keycard out of his pocket and opening the door. He held it open slightly and Penny tried to peek around him to see what was behind it.

"Okay, nice to see you, Penny, but I better get going. Bye." The words spilled out of him with a great amount of urgency as he quickly turned and went inside the lab. But instead of the door shutting with a click, Penny stuck one flip-flop clad foot out and stopped it.

She slid through the door behind Sheldon and let it shut behind her. His back was turned but when he heard the click of the door, he turned to see her leaning on the counter, sipping her coffee and grinning.

"Penny. You can't be in here. Authorized personnel only… You have to leave."

She looked at what was on the counter in front of her in total confusion. What looked like a pile of junk at first was actually some sort of device. There was a metal box in the center with the lid off, its circuits exposed for all to see. Hooked up to that was a panel of switches and dials with digital readouts.

"What is all this?"

Sheldon stood up straighter than she had ever seen him, arms crossed across his chest. "You have to leave. You aren't authorized for this."

Curiosity was killing her. She wanted so badly to start poking around the switches and dials but she was afraid she'd give him an aneurysm if she touched it. She moved closer to the box, hovering over it to get a better look.

"Sheldon, I thought you were a –", she paused to make sure she had the right word, "theoretical physicist. Not a 'build a doomsday device in your basement' kind of physicist."

"I'm serious. You have to leave now…"

Penny stepped closer and stumbled just enough to make the Starbucks cup in her hand slip out and land directly on the exposed areas of the box.

"PENNY!"

Blue sparks started flying towards her and both of them jumped back as the machine whirred to life. She reached out to see if she could turn it off but Sheldon grabbed her elbow and pulled her backwards. The entire room felt like it was vibrating and so did her head. She suddenly felt like someone was pressing a vacuum cleaner to her ears. That's the moment when the world went black.

*

She woke up in a familiar place, but without a clue of how she got there. Her bed, her room, but apparently hours had gone missing because the last thing she remembered was spilling her coffee in Sheldon's lab. The room was dark but she spied light coming from the crack in her closed bathroom door.

Penny sat up and looked at the clock. It was almost 6:30 a.m. and there was someone rustling around in her bathroom. Only once in her life had she been so drunk that she couldn't remember how she got to bed or who was in her bathroom. Maybe this was the second time. But she felt perfectly sober.

The door opened and she felt her throat tighten up as a tall slender man emerged from the bathroom. Light hit his pale face and instantly Penny figured it out. She had hit her head after breaking Sheldon's machine and was having a nightmare. That was the only explanation for who she saw in front of her.

"SHELDON?"

His hands flew instinctively towards his throat. "I apologize. Did I wake you before your requested time?"

She was wearing a camisole and shorts but she had never felt so naked in her life. Pulling the sheets up to cover herself, she slid backwards in the bed until she was up against the wall. Her voice took on a high-pitched screechy quality that reminded her far too much of her mother.

"SHELDON! What are you doing here?"

"I was using the bathroom."

He was wearing a t-shirt and boxer shirts, but as far as she knew Sheldon Cooper only wore briefs. At least he did the last time she saw him with his pants off.

"What are you doing in my apartment?"

Sheldon moved to her dresser and grabbed a pile of neatly folded clothes off the top. His clothes. That's when it hit her. She had slept with Sheldon Cooper. That was the only explanation. Penny waited for the lurch of terror in her stomach, but it didn't come.  
Sheldon looked at her like he was about to inquire if she had hit her head. "On average, we have been engaging in sexual intercourse 4.8 times a week. On most of those nights, one of us cohabitates in the apartment of the other. You have recently tried to convince me that that we should permanently cohabitate, but we have yet to decide on where we will live."

Okay. It looked like Sheldon and it sounded like Sheldon, but obviously, there was something not entirely right going on.

He started putting his clothes back on, but refused to take his eyes off of her. Penny pinched her arm as hard as she could and aside from a quick bit of pain, nothing else changed.

"Well, at least you're not saying coitus anymore. Uhm… so…", she could barely believe the next thought that popped into her head, "is it good? The sex? We like it?"

He pulled his Flash t-shirt over his head and frowned at her. "Penny, my ego isn't what one would call fragile, but you asking me these questions is more than a little off-putting. Are you okay?"

Sheldon came towards her and Penny jumped out of bed. She scuttled across the floor and around him like he was some sort of zombie about to eat her brains. Penny didn't stop until she reached her kitchen where she paused to lean on the counter and look around. It was as if things were the same, but with subtle differences. New throw pillows, a new lamp, different refrigerator magnets, but the same furniture.

The biggest difference in this world and the world she knew was walking out of her bedroom just as she saw the calendar hanging on the refrigerator.

_October 2012._

"Oh."

Over two years had gone by in the blink of an eye. Sheldon was standing feet away from her, cautious but obviously concerned. "What is going on with you?"

"This is going to sound insane and believe me I have no idea what's going on but…"

He took a step towards her and she instinctively took a step back before she said, "Five minutes ago it was 2010 and I was in your lab at CalTech. And now I'm here.

"I don't have a lab at CalTech. I never have. Were you having some sort of dream?"

Penny stared at him, gears turning in her head. She wasn't sure anymore whether this was a dream or if the world she knew was the dream. The words 'I don't know' were about to fall from her mouth when she felt the room start to vibrate and her ears filled with pressure.

"Sonofa – "

*

" – bitch."

She was back at CalTech, but this time she was in the cafeteria in totally different clothes. Looking around for a familiar face, she nearly jumped out of her skin when a hand slid into hers.

"Woxanne…"

"KRIPKE? I've told you before that my name is NOT Wox, err, I mean… Roxanne."

She tried to loosen her hand from his but his grip was a bit too tight. "I know, but it's a hottah name than Penny. And any girlfwiend of mine should have a hot name."

This time her stomach did lurch. It wasn't that Barry Kripke was unpleasant to look at, but the creep factor sort of ruined the whole effect.

"Girlfriend? What?"

"Uhh yeah. I bwought you hewe to show you off to my cowweagues. I'm going to pwove that Bawwy Kwipke can scowe a hottah woman than anyone hewe."

"Oh gross," she muttered under her breath as he lead her over to a nearby table. A table where Sheldon, Leonard, Howard and Raj were sitting.

Sheldon was staring at his forkful of peas looking pale as a ghost while the other three chatted around him.

"Hewwo wosahs. I just wanted you to meet my wady fwiend, Woxanne."

Penny looked at all of them but only Sheldon didn't look back, and none of them seemed to recognize her. She huffed loudly at his introduction and interrupted, "Actually, my name is not Roxanne, my name is – "

Sheldon looked up at that exact moment and locked eyes with her, "Penny."

"Sheldon…"

The others froze and Leonard pointed his fork at her and then towards Sheldon. "You two know each other?"

Next to Leonard, Howard started to grin. "Yeah, I thought the only beautiful woman Sheldon knew was his sister."

Raj nudged Sheldon with his elbow and gave him an approving glance. "That's one way to get back at Kripke, try and score with his girlfriend, huh?"

Sheldon's mouth opened to respond but no sound came out and Penny just blinked at Raj in surprise. When she came back to her senses, she wrenched her hand out of Kripke's and grabbed Sheldon by the elbow to pull him out of his chair.

"We really need to talk."

Sheldon stood and silently nodded as he followed her out of the cafeteria and into the empty hallway outside.

"Okay, Sheldon, what the hell is going on here?"

"I may have an idea, but I'm not sure…"

Penny stretched to her fullest height and crossed her arms over her chest. She decided that whatever was happening was obviously his fault.

"An idea? Well, you better figure it out. Because fifteen minutes ago, I was in your lab and it was 2010. Then I was in my apartment, but it wasn't really my apartment. And you were there, but it wasn't really you. Not THIS you. And it was 2 years from now. Two years from then. Or the other now. I don't know when _this_ now is. And I'm in some sort of upside down universe where I'm Barry frickin' Kripke's girlfriend and Raj talks in front of me"

Sheldon screwed his eyes shut tightly and frowned while she was ranting. She poked him in the chest with her index finger as she emphasized every word, "SHELDON. RAJ. WAS. TALKING. IN FRONT OF ME."

His eyes opened and he nodded. "I know."

Penny didn't know how he was so calm, but it was really annoying. "And you definitely weren't there with me before this? In my apartment? I mean, it was you. It was Sheldon Cooper. But not the same Sheldon that I was just in the lab with."

"No, I was… somewhere else."

The walls around her seemed to vibrate again and she knew what was coming next, but this time a dull pain filled her skull.

"Sheldon, I –"

*

" – feel like I'm going to vomit."

Oh. This was totally wrong. If the last two trips had been wrong, this was the crowning achievement in wrongness. Penny put her hand on her stomach and guessed that she was about fifteen months pregnant. At least that's what it felt like.

She looked around the tiny apartment and saw a few toys scattered about, which meant this wasn't her first child. Penny hoisted herself out of the chair and walked around to get a good look at what she was dealing with. The apartment was clean, but rather small for what she guessed was two adults and two small children.

Penny opened her curtains and looked out her front window. She recognized it immediately as Pierce Street in Omaha, the same street one of her high school friends had lived on.

She watched a neighbor empty his trash as she sat down by the window. Penny tried to figure out how she had been in Pasadena two minutes ago very un-pregnant and then she was suddenly back in Omaha. She was so lost in thought she didn't even notice the phone on the table next to her ringing until the answering machine kicked in and she heard her own voice.

"You've reached Penny and Jeremy –"

Jeremy Watkins. Her high school boyfriend. A guy who cheated on her with half the cheerleading squad. And now they were married. Or living together. They were something anyway.

"We can't come to the phone right now, but leave a message after the beep."

Penny wondered if she should answer it but seeing as how she didn't even know how she got here, she wouldn't know what to say to whoever was on the other line. The machine beeped and another familiar voice came over the machine. Even though she hadn't heard it in years, she knew it immediately.

"Hey babe, it's me."

Ugh. She hated it when Jeremy, or any guy, called her 'babe'.

"I picked up Junior from my mom's place and I'm on my way home."

And she had let him name the kid Jeremy Watkins, Jr. This was most definitely a nightmare. It was exactly what she never wanted her life to be. Married to a jerk, popping out kids like she was an upside down Pez dispenser and stuck in Omaha for the rest of her life.

She really needed this to all be a dream. Especially this part. Penny was hardly keen on the idea of being called Woxanne for the rest of her life, but she would have gladly taken that life over this one. At least in that world she had Sheldon, Leonard, Howard and Raj.

Sheldon. Sheldon would know how to fix whatever this was. So she picked up the phone and dialed information because that's what people did in movies. She didn't know if it were work or not, but it was worth trying.

"Pasadena, California. Sheldon Cooper, please."

She chose the option to connect automatically and waited for an answer. Never had she been more thrilled to hear his voice.

"Hello."

"Sheldon, oh thank God…"

"Who is this?"

Her heart had been jumping around in her chest but now it started to sink. "It's me. It's Penny."

There was a pause and she waited hopefully for his reply. "Penny who?"

"I just saw you five minutes ago. It's me, Penny. I live across the hall from you."

Only she didn't and never had. He lived thousands of miles away and they had probably never even met. She knew all that but hoped that something would trigger him or that it would be like the last time when he knew her immediately.

"Is this some sort of prank call? Did Koothrappali put you up to this? I live across the hall from a transvestite and his name is definitely not Penny."

She sighed loudly and put her other hand on her forehead just as the pain behind her eyes started to build. Her world started going black as she could hear Sheldon's voice on the other line asking her to explain herself.

*

"Penny."

Her eyes opened instantly and she saw Sheldon lying on the cold tile floor beside her. They were back in the lab where it all started and he looked almost as bewildered as she felt.

"Sheldon… what the hell just happened?"

He stood slowly then reached out his hand to help her up. They were standing exactly where they had begun, in front of the device Sheldon had been working on. He let go of her hand as she dusted herself off. Penny stared at the machine in front of them, her plastic Starbucks cup now melted among its circuitry.

"I believe we've been experiencing random spurts of inter-dimensional travel."

Penny laughed loud and sharply. She would have thought she just passed out and had a weird dream if he hadn't been lying beside her when she woke up. "You're kidding, right? What is this thing anyway?"

His head turned and it was clear by his face that he wasn't. "No, I'm not kidding. I've been secretly working on building a time travel device. It hasn't worked yet… until you spilled your latte –"

"Caramel macchiato."

"Not important. But, the fact is, your spill has caused some sort of short in the system that sent us into various alternate realities with no control over our destination or duration of stay."

Penny reached out to poke at the plastic cup but Sheldon quickly pulled her hand away. He hunched over to take a closer look at the device as it continued to sputter and spark in front of him.

"So basically, I accidentally invented time travel. Coooooool."

She was already debating whether she wanted Penny or Penelope as her name on the Nobel Prize in Awesome she was going to win. Her thoughts were interrupted when a loud hiss of breath escaped from between Sheldon's clenched teeth.

"No. You accidentally ruined my time machine and sent us on a trip through alternate universes."

"And how was I supposed to know it was a time machine. It doesn't LOOK like a time machine."

Sheldon stood up completely straight and glared down at her. "A time machine has never existed before, so how would you know what one looks like?"

One side of her mouth went up in a smirk. "Like that monstrosity you used to have in your living room? Or like, a DeLorean? But not like my grandpa's old stereo…"

Sheldon rolled his eyes and went back to poking at the circuitry but Penny wasn't done, "Like a TARDIS?"

"No."

"So what did you see while we were, uhh, gone? Besides that thing with Kripke…"

Sheldon turned around and leaned against the table. "Not important. You do realize this may not be over yet?"

"Oh no. No no no. I'm going home before that thing incinerates us or something."

She started backing away as Sheldon crouched over the box pulling at the wires delicately with the tips of his fingers.

"Won't matter," he muttered.

"Excuse me?"

"Your physical body has stayed here. But your conscious, your mind, is traveling. Depending on what happened to cause this, you can still travel even if you leave the building. Or the state. Or the country."

Her life was officially a mixture of weird, fantastic and a little bit scary. Good news, she thought to herself, you invented time travel or dimension hopping or whatever it was. Bad news, you really fucked it up, kid. She was frozen in her spot until Sheldon rolled two chairs over for the both of them.

"Sit."

No one, least of all Sheldon, was going to bark commands at her. Not today. So she glared. Then he glared back and motioned towards the chair as he sat in the one nearest to him.

"In case it happens again, then you won't pass out and crack your skull on the floor."

She almost refused just so he would feel bad for barking at her if she did crack her skull. But she gave in, sighing as she took her seat.

"Sheldon, I think we need a code word."

He was back working on the device and didn't look at her as he responded, "For what?"

"Because the first place I went, it was you, but not you. Then the second place was –"

"The cafeteria, right. And the third?"

"Nebraska. I tried to call you, but you didn't know who I was."

He paused his work and tilted his head to look at her. "Of course not. If you never left Nebraska, it seems unlikely you would have ever met me."

Penny rolled her chair a little closer to him and Sheldon flinched protectively, like she was going to break his machine a second time. "So, codeword. Like, I'll say apricot. And then you'll know it's me. This me. And I'll know it's you."

"I'm still not sure I get the point."

Penny frowned at him and sunk down in the chair lower. She wasn't sure she got the point either, but maybe she was just looking for something to keep her tethered to this world.

"Sheldon, I'm still not sure I understand exactly what is happening here. Is it time travel?"

"Yes. And no."

"What about the dimension thing? How is that even a thing?"

Sheldon sighed as he adjusted a dial on the front of the machine. "Do you want me to fix this or explain how one's conscious can travel through dimensions and how those dimensions actually exist?"

Penny put her elbows on the table next to the machine and looked at him helplessly. "Yes. Both of those things."

"Fine. I'll explain…"

"But do it in English please. Not fancy science language."

Sheldon frowned at her. "You find this all terribly funny, don't you?"

Her insides felt heavy and she felt the throbbing behind her eyes once again. Penny breathed in slowly and shook her head. "I really don't."

Sheldon wasn't even touching it but blue sparks shot off the back of the device and Penny saw him slump first as the darkness overtook her again. Her last thought was that maybe the chairs were a good idea after all.

*

Penny loved to dance, but she hated the clubs. She hated the skeevy men, the way too expensive drinks and the women who got bitchy or jealous when they weren't getting enough attention. If you couldn't find a guy to pay for your drink, you practically needed a line of credit.

But here she was, through no will of her own. Sheldon's magic mystery box had sent her here. But even putting that aside, she could tell that the Penny in this world wasn't enjoying this much either.

She poked at the ice in her drink and sighed. Hopefully, this wasn't some evil universe where her life was made up of nothing but nightclubs and skeevy guys.

"Hey babe…"

"Oh no…"

She spun around on her stool and came to face to face with Howard Wolowitz. Wearing an eye patch.

"Did you know there are 206 bones in the human body? Want one more in yours?"

"Oh. Eww."

Howard tried again, tilting his head and trying his best to look suave. "Nice curves you have there. Need a tangent?"

Penny frowned at him and put her drink down on the bar. "Math thing, right?"

"Yeah. I'm an engineer at CalTech. I can show you where I work, let you drive a car around Mars."

Penny grinned and leaned in closer. If she was stuck here she might as well have some fun. "Oh, I know who you are, Howard Wolowitz."

"Uhh – how?"

"I've seen you before at the bars and clubs. And I just felt like we were soulmates, you know. So I followed you. You live with your mother in Altadena &amp; you drive a scooter, right?"

Howard practically slid off of his stool. Apparently some things in alternate universes stayed the same no matter what. "I should go. Nice to meet you…. But yeah, I'm going to go."

He started to walk away and Penny shouted after me, "Just call me the future Mrs. Howard Wolowitz!"

Penny laughed and turned back to the bar. She would have been having a lot more fun with this inter-dimensional travel thing if it didn't make her so damn dizzy.

*

She was determined not to vomit no matter how queasy this world jumping crap made her feel. This time she woke up in a trailer. Not one that was sitting on cinder blocks or anything, but a real live trailer like a movie star spent their time in.  
And it was nice. Sure, Angelina Jolie had probably seen nicer ones, but this was quite comfortable. To Penny, it meant only good things. She might have been stuck waitressing in her life, but somewhere out there a Penny existed that had achieved an actual acting career.

She looked around for a script and found it sitting on a small cozy sofa. The show was called "Hyperion" and as she flipped through the pages, she discovered that it didn't sound half bad. The main female character was a scientist who was both smart and tough. Smart and tough was not how most casting directors saw her, so if there was a ditzy blonde in the script, she was sure that was her part.

She rifled through the papers on the nearby table until she found the call sheet listing the actors that were supposed to be on set. Her finger trailed down the list until she found her name and she made an involuntary squeal of joy when she saw her role.  
Penny Harding in the role of Cleo Amaranth. That's right, bubbly, blonde, too-Midwest Penny was the lead actress on a television series. And she wasn't playing a bimbo or a lifeguard in a tight red swimsuit. Penny thought she would refer to this world as the MOST awesome of all the worlds when someday recounting her adventures.

There was a knock on the door and a voice telling her she was needed on set right away. Penny couldn't but giggle and muttered to herself, "Miss Harding, you're needed on set… So so awesome."

She was wearing a simple but fitted button-down shirt and jeans, the costume of a scientist apparently.

Penny practically skipped out of her trailer and across the alley to the soundstage where she was greeted by a short scruffy guy, presumably her director.

"Great, you're here. I know we said we wouldn't need you on set for at least another hour but I wanted to introduce you to someone."

"Okay… lead the way."

She knew she had a big goofy smile on her face, but there was nothing she could do to wipe it away. This was her dream and even if she only got to live it for a few minutes, she was going to enjoy it.

Penny walked behind him for a minute until she spotted who she was about to be introduced to. He was impossible to miss, standing a head taller than everyone on set except some of the teamsters. It also helped that he was completely out of place as he stood there fidgety and obviously uncomfortable.

Penny stepped up to him and she couldn't tell if he recognized her not. He seemed to be staring at her rather curiously, so she thrust out her hand towards him.

"Penny Harding."

"You look different."

"Uhm… well, the camera adds weight. Everyone looks skinnier in person, they say. So I get that a lot."

At least she assumed she would.

Penny smiled and looked back at her director who responded with, "Penny, this is Dr. Sheldon Cooper, he's going to be our new scientific advisor. I'll let you guys talk for a few minutes. I have to go take care of a situation with your co-star."

"Cool, thanks." Penny watched him go and then turned back to Sheldon, "Apricot?"

"Are you asking if I'm hungry – oh wait – Apricot. I still think it's ridiculous."

Penny grinned and punched him on the arm. "But it worked didn't it? Man, I can't believe you would agree to be a scientific advisor on a TV show, even a show you might want to watch."

Sheldon stood with his back straight and frowned. "I feel absolutely certain that I was somehow coerced into doing this against my will."

"But come on, this is kind of awesome, right? I'm like a real actress on a real show. A show YOU would probably watch. I think there are aliens and mutant squid and maybe time travel or something."

He shrugged and looked around the set, always one to hold judgment until he's seen the final product. "Not all science fiction shows are watchable."

Penny bounced on the balls of her feet and nudged him with her elbow. "Oh, you know what? I bet we have our own panel at Comic-Con. Sheldon, I get to go to Comic-Con."

"I've been to Comic-Con. Many times."

"Stop acting unimpressed. You've _been_ to Comic-Con, but I have a _panel_ at Comic-Con. You can't beat that."

Sheldon sighed and spoke in an annoyingly dry tone, "Yes, Penny, I am very proud of you."

She scrunched up her face and thought about punching him again but stopped herself. "So can we stay here?"

"It doesn't work that way."

"It should."

They were interrupted when a handsome dark-haired man walked up to them. Penny assumed by the way he looked he was probably her co-star and they probably bantered and disagreed as their characters, but would have seasons worth of unresolved sexual tension. Penny watched enough television to figure that one out.

"Hey, Penny…"

She recognized him from somewhere, another show or a movie, but his name wasn't coming to her so she improvised, "Heyyyyyy, you."

He looked Sheldon over and held out a hand but Sheldon kept his arms crossed over his chest refusing to participate in another social ritual. "And you are?"

"Dr. Sheldon Cooper. I'm your science advisor."

"Nice to meet you, Doctor. Watch out for my co-star here, she's a real flirt."

Penny laughed and waved her hand at him. "I am not. You're exaggerating."

Her co-star winked at her and took a sip of coffee before walking away. Penny turned back to Sheldon, still smiling and bouncing like she was eight years old and had just gotten a pony for Christmas.

Sheldon rolled his eyes and looked the other way. "You're having way too much fun with this."

He wasn't wrong. If she had been given the chance, she would have taken him out to celebrate. Just because. This was a dream come true for her.

But it was only going to last for a short period of time, so she savored it. Even as she felt that funny feeling again, she couldn't wipe the smile away. Penny grabbed on to Sheldon's arm and he finally gave her the slightest of smiles in return as they blinked out of this world and into another.

*

They woke up together in the middle of a nice – no, wait - a really _really_ nice, living room. Not extravagant, just nice and humble. Her hand was still on his arm when she heard him groan and say, "Apricot."

"Whoa. Is that how it works? If I hang on to you, do I get to keep you?"

"Doubtful. Could be just a one time occurrence."

Sheldon moved so that she was no longer touching him and he began walking around the room looking at things closely.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to figure out where we are. You should do the same."

Penny rolled her eyes and walked in the opposite direction, coming across the first piece of key evidence. "We're married."

Sheldon froze and spun around to face her as she held up a framed wedding photo. They looked good, and most of all they looked happy and in love. "You're joking, right?"

"Nope. Here we are. Married. Very very married. My dress was awesome too."

She walked into the next room and Sheldon followed. It looked like an office, definitely Sheldon's as indicated by the whiteboards. Penny knew this was her touch, because Sheldon would have just kept them in the living room if she didn't insist on moving them elsewhere.

She had to laugh and shake it off because she realized she was thinking like they were married, but in their reality they had never been anything more than friends. Something, in more than one world, had made friendship turn into something more. Now that was going to be a mystery she'd have to unravel eventually.

This time it was Sheldon's turn to find something. "Penny…"

Penny had grabbed a photo album off of a shelf but hadn't opened yet. "Hmm?"

"I won the Nobel Prize."

"Duh."

"What do you mean 'duh'?"

"I mean, of course you did. It's like your destiny or fate or whatever."

"Fate is just a concept. It doesn't exist."

Penny flipped open the photo album and found it contained news clippings and pictures. Sheldon at the top of his field, new discoveries and life changing work. Penny wasn't a movie star or an Oscar winner, but she had worked on television and in the theatre, and there were good reviews tucked inside these pages. She was happy and content here. Even though this wasn't her life, she could feel it deep down inside.

"Sheldon… We're really happy. And successful. Not obnoxiously successful or unrealistically successful. Just… our life is good."

Sheldon nodded like he understood, but he was still trying to compute what it could all mean. Penny shut the book and walked over to him. If she was stuck on this crazy adventure, she might as well enjoy it.

She was in a world where two friends had somehow managed to end up happily married. It wasn't like she hadn't noticed that Sheldon had some attractive qualities or that even when they were at each other's throats, it was incredibly fun. But she always thought Sheldon had no interest in so-called normal relationships. This whole trip was teaching her that maybe there was a lot more there than she ever realized.

So she threw her arms over his shoulders and went up on her toes to kiss him. Her lips pressed against his and he tensed up for a moment before relaxing and kissing her back. It was as if their bodies knew what to do instinctively, as if they had been kissing like this for years, even though it was their first. His hands went to her waist and that's when she realized that this version of Sheldon and Penny had been kissing like this for years. Their lips and their bodies knew each other this way even if their minds didn't.

And if she really had to admit it – it was totally hot.

When she broke it off, she laughed softly and buried her head in his chest. "I'm sorry. I just had to know."

"Had to know what?"

"Why the hell I married you, you idiot."

She expected him to let go of her but his hands just moved to rest at the small of her back. His voice was soft and seemed more sure than she expected it to. "My meemaw always said that I would be a good catch if I could find a woman that was tough enough to put up with me."

Penny lifted her head from its resting spot and smiled at him. If there was one thing she was good at it, it was handling Sheldon's crap better than any of his other friends. So that was at least one thing about all of this that she understood.

"I also was curious, I guess. I wanted to know if Sheldon Cooper in this world was a good kisser."

"You have nothing to compare it to versus the Sheldon Cooper of other worlds. Wait… you don't, do you? You haven't been roaming the dimensions kissing me?"

She laughed again and shook her head. "No. This was the first one. I swear."

He looked a little worried that he had been violated and just didn't know it. But Penny barely had time to process it before the butterflies in her stomach turned to something else entirely.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An average Wednesday. A caramel macchiato. A pair of broken glasses. All of those tiny moments add up, and sometimes they cause Penny to accidentally invent inter-dimensional travel and take Sheldon with her. Those little moments can change the entire course of one's life, places both new and old, moments both good and bad. Will what they see change them forever? If they even get back at all.

  
II.

This time she was definitely going to vomit. She wanted to stand and run but her legs felt like they were full of jelly. So she rolled the chair she was in over to the wastebasket and let go. She didn't even bother looking at the aftermath, just rolled back to Sheldon who was looking a little paler than usual but healthy compared to her.

"You just vomited in my trashcan. I hope this is a side effect of inter-dimensional travel and not kissing me. Not that I care."

Penny brushed a piece of hair away from her forehead and stared at him. "That is seriously the only thing you have to say after all of that?"

"Yes."

She put one arm down on the table and laid her head on it gently. "You know maybe this whole experience would be fascinating if it didn't make me feel like someone was vacuuming my insides out through my ears."

"That's odd."

"You don't feel it?"

Sheldon yawned slightly, then opened and shut his mouth a few times like he was on an airplane trying to get his ears to pop. "I feel a little suction, but there's no pain or nausea."

Penny groaned before she replied, "I hate you."

"This is your fault. I didn't invite you and I definitely don't recall asking you to spill your latte –"

"Caramel macchiato."

"My point is - this wouldn't be happening if it wasn't for you."

Penny tried to nod but didn't feel like lifting her head just yet. He was right. Of course he was. She had started it all, but didn't know how to stop it.

"Sheldon, before we – you know – you were going to explain some stuff to me."

"Right, of course."

Sheldon stood and walked over to a whiteboard that was sitting on an easel but before he moved it too far, Penny sat up straight again and spoke, "No! Without whiteboards please. Just talk to me like normal people talk."

He paused to consider her suggestion and then nodded and sat back down. She was starting to feel better now, but the worry of not knowing how long she would be here before they were taken away again left a deep pit of worry in her stomach.

"The device I've been building has two intended purposes that are interrelated. Time travel and inter-dimensional travel."

"Interrelated?"

"The plan was to work on time travel and once I had that problem solved, move on to inter-dimensional travel."

Penny was biting her bottom lip as she tried to listen to every single word. "Okay, time travel, I get. It's like Scott Bakula or something."

Sheldon shook his head and sighed, "It's not at all like Scott Bakula."

"_Quantum Leap_ Scott Bakula, Sheldon, not _Enterprise_."

"I'm aware of the difference. I didn't know YOU were, but I am."

She sat up a little straighter, almost defiant. Maybe she got most of her knowledge of science-fiction from hanging out with them, but _Quantum Leap_ was all her own.

"I fell off a horse and broke my leg the summer before eleventh grade, so I spent six weeks at home watching _Quantum Leap_ episodes on cable. Continue."

"Fine. Sam, as played by Scott Bakula, was leaping around in his own timeline. My invention was intended to send its operator to times prior to their birth or long after their death."

"But it's not. So far, it's all been stuff in my own timeline. Yours too, right?"

"Yes, technically. But timeline implies that it's the same line. We're breaking off from our current timeline and visiting other universes."

Penny nodded as if she understood but then paused and furrowed her brow. "Okay, that's what I don't get. The universes thing. That's way too sci-fi to be real."

Sheldon looked at his machine and then back to Penny. "Oh, time travel you buy, but many worlds theory is too much to handle.

"Many worlds… many worlds… wait. Is that the thing where you could be a clown made out of a candy?"

"Yes. Though highly unlikely. Biologically speaking, it would difficult to sustain life if you were only made of Red Vines and jelly beans."

Penny groaned and leaned against the table again. "Sheldon, we could get sucked into candy clown land at any second now if one exists, so you might want to hurry along the explanation."

Sheldon put his hands together and nodded as he continued, "What I'm trying to say is that there are theories out there that say whenever we make a decision or take a path in life, there is another alternate dimension out there in which we take the opposite path."

"So in one world, I move to Pasadena and this is my life. In another world, I'm living in Nebraska with my ex-boyfriend because I made a different choice."

"Exactly. Life is a series of choices. Each choice we make creates a different world. The machine's malfunction seems to be taking us on a tour of some of those worlds before shifting us back into our own."

She was about to compare it to a Gwyneth Paltrow movie she saw years ago, but decided one more pop culture reference would slow them down or make Sheldon's head explode.

"Okay. I get it. But why?"

"Because I didn't design my invention to work with a la –" he paused as Penny raised an eyebrow ready to correct him "- a caramel macchiato gumming up the works."

"When we win the Nobel Prize, you'll be thanking me for screwing up your thingy."

Sheldon looked like he was about to unleash a tirade on why people don't win Nobel prizes for spilling coffee, but he stopped himself, took a deep breath in and continued on. "I don't know why this is happening."

"Okay. Great. So more importantly, how do we stop it?"

"I'm not sure. But, if I can just fix this machine, get it to work, then maybe I can stop this."

"And what about my head? Can we stop that from hurting too?"

Sheldon winced. It would hardly have been noticeable to most people, but Penny caught it immediately. She figured he was having headaches too, but he wasn't making it known. He was keeping calm in the face of uncertainty. She didn't know if he was doing it more for her than for his own sake, but she decided she would suck it up too.

"The smartest thing we can do right now is stay together."

Penny nodded and gave him a slight smile while Sheldon grabbed a notebook from a nearby table and started scrawling some notes inside of it. A few years ago if you told her she'd have to be stuck in a room with Sheldon for an indeterminate amount of time, she would have considered drastic measures to prevent that. But these days they had reached some sort of comfortable stasis. If she had to count, she'd probably say she spent more time with Sheldon than anyone else in her life.

"So I should do what?"

"Be quiet. Let me work."

His words were firm, but not at all harsh. Penny smiled again and motioned back towards to the machine as an indication that she would no longer interrupt him while he worked. Sheldon went back to his notebook and then back to the machine.

She tried to curl up in the chair but it was too wobbly so she slouched down instead and watched him while he worked. He would write in the notebook, pause as if he was thinking and then return to fiddling with the device. Occasionally, he would stand up, walk to the cabinet against the wall and pull out a spare part.

Normally she would have been bored but watching Sheldon work so intently was surprisingly fascinating. There was something oddly attractive about his intense gaze as he stared at the circuits or the way his body curved as he hunched over the machine.

Perhaps now was not the time to start thinking about Sheldon in that way, but Penny couldn't stop thinking about what she had seen already today. They were still the same people in those other universes, but something had made them choose each other and it had happened in more than one universe.

Strangest of all, she had felt happy. The whole thing felt ridiculous, and maybe it was silly to presume what another Penny in another life felt, but she had an overwhelming sense of contentment in those particular universes. Just as she had felt dread or discord in the other less pleasant ones.

"Sheldon, I don't mean to interrupt again, but I have a question."

He didn't look up as he was attaching a wire to a piece of green plastic. "What is it?"

She took a deep breath and moved her chair a little closer to him. Penny had no idea why but for some reason, she felt she needed to speak softly. "Is it possible to feel how, you know, the other Penny in another universe feels about things? Do you know what I mean?"

"As in, if your alternative self was happy in that life, you would feel it too while you were there. Or alternately if you were sad, you would feel sad."

"Yeah. That. Is that even possible?"

Sheldon finished attaching the wire and looked towards her as he replied, "Emotions and feelings aren't quantifiable in that way. Just trying to understand how you and I have been transferring our conscious to other universes is difficult enough, but adding emotion in to that… Well, it's something we can't really compute."

Penny sighed and pleaded with her eyes. Sheldon stayed in the lines too much and she needed reassurance even if there was no math to back it up. "Sheldon, you don't need to show your work. Just tell me if you think it's possible."

He wasn't good at this stuff and she knew it, but occasionally he was able to break through and be reassuring even if he was faking it. "Yes, I think it's possible. We're essentially sharing a consciousness with another version of ourselves so emotional transfer is possible."

There was a flicker of something in his eyes before he turned back to his work and she understood it immediately. He knew it was possible because he felt those things too. The good and the bad.

Penny had no time to ponder the implications of everything she had seen and felt so far because as soon as Sheldon turned back to his notebook, she heard a low groan come from his throat. He put his head in his hands and she saw all the color drain out of his face.

"Sheldon? What's going on?"

She moved closer and put one hand on his back but Sheldon didn't react. Normally he would have flinched, or at the very least looked in her direction. He just kept holding his head in his hands and she could feel him trembling under her touch.

That's when she started to feel it too. She would have to remind him later that if he really wanted his invention to work, he was definitely going to have to figure out a less painful way for people to travel.

Her other hand grabbed on to Sheldon's arm and as she squeezed her eyes shut, she felt him go limp beneath her.

*

The landings weren't so awful anymore. It was the take-off that was so miserable.

She opened her eyes and immediately knew she was in Leonard and Sheldon's apartment. At least it was a familiar place, but there were things about it she didn't recognize, as if something was missing.

Penny was sitting in Sheldon's spot, except it was a completely different couch.

Leonard was in the kitchen getting a glass of water and he walked over to sit next to her while Penny just kept staring.

"So I thought while we have the time, we'd discuss honeymoon options."

"Honeymoon? Whose honeymoon?"

Leonard put his glass down on the table and laughed nervously before replying, "Our honeymoon. Of course."

She suddenly felt the extra weight on her hand and caught a glimpse of the engagement ring on her finger.

"Oh."

"That's one way to react."

"I – uhm… I need to talk to Sheldon."

"Sheldon Cooper? From Caltech? But you've never even met -"

Penny stood and took a deep breath in to calm herself. So maybe this wasn't so bad. She had dated Leonard for months, and she did care for him. But the thought of marrying him had never entered her mind. Not even once.

She walked towards the door and paused with her hand on the knob then turned back to Leonard. "How long have we been together?"

"Did you hit your head?"

"Just… humor me. Please."

"Two and a half years."

Penny nodded and let out a loud sigh. Probably too loud. It was obvious she was making Leonard nervous and worried that she was about to back out of the wedding.

"And you asked me to marry you? And you said 'I love you' before I did? Right?"

"Yeah, of course…"

"And we've never met Wil Wheaton have we?"

His head tilted up and he squinted at her in complete confusion as he spoke, "Ensign Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation? No, we've never met Wil Wheaton."

Penny breathed in and tried her best to smile as she said, "Okay… that explains a lot. Uhm. I have to go. But I'm sure I'll be back. Don't you worry."

She heard him say her name as she made a quick exit and ran down the stairs. It all made sense now. If they weren't friends with Sheldon, then they would never have gone bowling with Wil Wheaton and that was the night her and Leonard broke up. It wasn't that it was Wil's fault they broke up, but talking to him had been her catharsis. She had realized that no matter how much she cared for Leonard, they didn't really belong together.

But, she had never had that catharsis in this world. It wasn't as if a life with Leonard was going to be filled with misery or pain. She could certainly do a lot worse, and had, but it wasn't what she wanted. And both of them deserved more than that.  
She hit the bottom floor of the apartment building out of breath and confused about what to do next. Seeking out Sheldon seemed to be the right thing to do in every world, so she dug in the pocket of her jeans for her phone. She was just about to dial information when another wave of pain rushed through her head.

*

Things moved faster now. Like scenes from a movie as they jumped from one world to the next. Some were simple, some even reminded her of the life she had already been living. Others made no sense. They were dark and painful, and sometimes she felt like she was barely there.

There were worlds were the city was on fire. And worlds where the oceans had taken over half the land.

This was a lot less fun than it had been before.

She was sure it was just a coincidence that she jumped from a world where she was almost Mrs. Leonard Hofstadter to a world where everything was ending. Things were never that bad when she was with him, they just weren't right for each other.

If she explained it to Sheldon, she was sure he'd tell her there was no correlation between her dating Leonard and the end of the world. And if there was anyone she trusted to tell her the facts, it was definitely Sheldon.

*  
Things finally slowed down a bit when Penny found herself on an empty street carrying a shot gun. It was definitely like something out of a movie. One about the apocalypse.

She heard rustling from across the alleyway so she ran for it and collided directly into Sheldon. He looked like he hadn't bathed or shaved in days. It was shocking, especially for someone as clean as Sheldon, but the whole effect was actually surprisingly attractive.

"Whoa. Slow down there…"

He stared at her in disbelief and spoke only one word, "Run."

So she did. It was Sheldon after all, and if he told her to run, he probably had a good reason to. She could feel him right at her back as they ran down streets that she recognized as what was left of Los Angeles. She felt like she had been running for ages when she peeked over her shoulder and saw them.

Zombies.

"Oh. No way!" was what she shouted in surprise. Zombies weren't real. At least she thought they were only real in movies. But she was hardly going to stop and ask them if they were really dead people who liked to eat human flesh

Sheldon grabbed her arm and pulled her around a corner where he grabbed the gun he had been carrying on his back and started shooting. This was one area where their backgrounds paid off, both of them had deadly aim. Combined, they took out the small group that had been chasing them in a matter of minutes.

He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her inside the nearest building. There were tables and chairs strewn everywhere and it reeked of rotting food, but at least it was empty and safe for the moment.

Penny found a chair and took a seat as Sheldon found one next to her. That's when she took a moment to look around and realize exactly where she was. The Cheesecake Factory. The same one she had once worked at.

She chuckled loud enough that it echoed across the nearly empty room.

"Something funny?"

His voice was raspy and she could see how tired he was.

"I used to work here."

"When?"

"In another life."

"I think I might have eaten here before. They had a good barbecue bacon cheeseburger."

Penny smiled and nodded. Barbecue sauce, bacon and cheese on the side. The world was different but some things were always constant.

She kicked at a piece of broken glass on the floor but couldn't tear her eyes away from him. There was no way they were the only two survivors of the zombie apocalypse, but it somehow didn't surprise her that they were surviving.

There was a crashing sound at the doors of the restaurant and they both stood and grabbed their weapons. A horde of the undead, far larger than before began streaming in from every entrance.

She shot at them one by one but screamed in horror as she saw Sheldon being dragged away by a group of six. Penny kept shooting but did not stop screaming his name the entire time.

*

She didn't wake up slowly this time. Penny's head lifted from its resting place on Sheldon's back and she breathed in like she hadn't breathed in a week. Sheldon was still slumped over the table unmoving as Penny tried to shake off everything she had just seen. If it had been just a dream, it wouldn't have been a big deal. But it was real. Not in this universe, but somewhere out there, it was real.

She ran her fingers down the side of Sheldon's face. He was breathing normally and just looked as if he was sleeping. His brow was even furrowed as if he was dreaming.

This was definitely weird. Before they had come back at the same time, but Sheldon was still out. She didn't know if he was gone or just passed out. Sheldon had told her they were safest right where they were, but she didn't anticipate this.

Penny didn't know whether to worry or just wait for him to wake up. So she did both. She laid her head on the table so that she was facing him and put her hands on top of the hand he had laying in front of him.

People's eyes moved when they slept, but Sheldon's didn't, which was just a reminder that he wasn't actually sleeping. He was gone and somewhere else. Wherever it was, she hoped it was better than the last place she saw.

They spent hours, sometimes a couple days, in these other worlds. But Penny noticed that the clock in the corner said it was only 2:07 in the afternoon. She had only been at CalTech for close to two hours. Days might be passing wherever Sheldon was, but only minutes passed here.

Penny had been watching for over twenty minutes when she began to wonder if she should call one of the other guys for help. As she was debating what to do next, he began to stir next to her so she sat up but did not move her hand from his.

He lifted his head slowly and she watched him blink about a thousand times. His skin was still pale, paler than usual, and he looked ill. But at the same time, he looked relieved to see her face, like he had seen something that made him believe she wouldn't be here when he woke up.

"Hey… are you okay? I came back like twenty minutes ago but you didn't. I was worried, but you said we were safer here, so…"

Sheldon took a deep breath in and just nodded as if it wasn't a big deal at all. "I'm fine."

She gripped his hand tightly and frowned at him. "That can't be true. I'm looking at you and you don't look fine at all."

"I just – I – I need to fix this machine and make this whole thing stop. Soon."

His notebook was right next to him so she let go of his hand and let him flip through it again. The tone of his voice had been far too ominous for her liking. Sheldon knew things that she didn't and she was almost afraid to ask the next question that came to mind but she had to know.

"Sheldon… if you die while you're in the other world, do you not come back here?"

His long fingers smoothed out the page in front of him, taking his time to answer her back. He didn't look like he had to think it over, but he looked like he dreaded the answer. Finally, he looked back at her and she saw something strange in his eyes, like he had lost something incredibly important.

"I – I don't know."

She didn't even have time to process his response before he turned back to his work. The last thing she had seen had been dark enough, but maybe Sheldon had seen something even darker.

Penny suddenly felt completely helpless sitting here. She couldn't fix what she had broken, and maybe Sheldon couldn't either. And if Sheldon couldn't fix it, there was a chance that no one could. They could spend the rest of their lives hurtling through time and space with no control over their lives.

She felt queasy but not at all like she was going to lose her lunch again. She jumped out of the chair and stood but Sheldon was back to looking at his work again.

"I need water. I'm going to go get water."

He looked back at her with complete seriousness, almost commanding her. "You can't leave."

Penny rubbed her hands on her shorts nervously and responded, "I'll be gone two minutes and I'll be right back. I just – I can't sit here doing nothing. Being useless. Not with you looking at me like that."

She expected him to respond like he didn't know what she meant by the last sentence but he nodded solemnly. "Make a right and there's a vending machine about three offices away from here. And hurry back."

Penny nodded and walked towards the door. She could feel his eyes stay on her the entire time until she was out in the hallway. It felt like he was afraid that if she wasn't where he could see her, she might disappear entirely.

The walk down the hallway seemed like it took hours as her thoughts started weighing her down. Most of the time, she actually respected how un-emotional Sheldon could be. She knew that he had feelings and she had seen him at his most human. But she also appreciated that he wasn't a slave to his emotions like most people seemed to be. It made him focused and able to judge situations without bias.

But this was different. This time she wanted nothing more than to dig into that head of his and find out why he was acting so strangely. For two people who had a malfunctioning time machine in their hands, time seemed to be incredibly important right now. So she would wait to dig, until all of this was over.

She quickly paid for two bottles of water out of the vending machine and made her way back to Sheldon's lab where she expected to find him hard at work again. But when she walked back in, he was passed out once more, a small trickle of blood dripping out of one nostril.

Penny rushed to his side and was relieved to discover that he was still breathing, though less steady than he was before. She knew he had said they'd be safest there but she instantly forgot it and went for her first instinct, to use the phone on the wall to call for help. The dispatcher told her an ambulance would arrive in minutes, and Penny pondered how she was going to explain all of this to doctors or paramedics, or if she'd even be awake when they got there.

She was standing in the open doorway waiting for help to arrive when Raj walked by and froze in his tracks at the sight of her.

"Raj, oh my God, I'm so glad you're here. Listen, it's a long story, but something has happened and Sheldon is sick and…"

"Where is he?"

Penny didn't even stop to register that Raj was talking to her and just lead him into the lab. "We've been in here together working on… stuff. And uhm, what happened to him might happen to me too."

Raj looked at Sheldon who was still out cold but breathing then looked at the device. "Penny, what is this?"

"I don't think I have time to explain, but I will, I promise. I just need someone I trust to help deal with this. If I... If I pass out, you can't let them separate me and Sheldon."

Raj looked completely perplexed and kept turning his gaze back and forth between Penny and Sheldon. "How can I do that?"

"Just please promise you'll try, okay? We need Sheldon to be okay because he's the only one who can fix this."

"Okay. I promise."

She gave him a quick hug and then took her seat next to Sheldon as they waited in silence for the paramedics to arrive. Her hand stayed on his the entire time, as if she was afraid that if she let go of him for too long he would vanish into thin air.

When the paramedics arrived, Raj had to lay a hand on her shoulder to get her to pull away from him. Minutes ago, she could tell herself he was just sleeping peacefully but when the paramedics lifted his pale limp form on to the stretcher, it made things look that much worse.

They begin testing his vital signs and the only good news came as they followed the gurney down the hallway. Penny overheard one paramedic tell the other that his heart rate and blood pressure were normal and at least that was something she could hold on to.

While they stood outside and watched them put Sheldon inside the ambulance, Raj made quick phone calls to Leonard and Howard to tell them they were heading to the hospital.

"Should I call Sheldon's mother?"

Penny paused and then shook her head. "No. Not yet. Not until we know more. I don't want to freak her out if it's not a big deal."

But it was a big deal and she knew it. What she didn't know was how to explain these things. It wasn't as if traveling through alternate universes was something people did every single day, and as far as she knew, they were the first. There was a chance the doctors wouldn't even be able to help Sheldon because this was something entirely unknown.

They watched the ambulance drive away and Raj put his hand on Penny's arm to lead her to his car parked nearby. "Howard and Leonard are going to meet us there."

Penny nodded but didn't look towards him until the ambulance was completely out of sight. She sat down in Raj's passenger seat and buckled her seat belt, but it was all instinct. The rest of her was with Sheldon.

"It's a fifteen minute drive to the hospital. Will you tell me what is going on while we drive?"

Penny looked away from the window and towards Raj. That's when it registered. "Raj... you're talking. Like, a lot."

He started the car and backed out of the parking space with a smile. "You just now noticed?"

"Yeah. My mind is definitely somewhere else right now. But how? How are you talking to me?"

"I guess there are some things more important than my hang-ups right now."

She nodded in understanding and settled into her seat. It was a quiet for a moment until Raj punctured the silence once again and spoke, "So what is going on with you two?"

"Would you believe me if I told you I accidentally invented time travel? Except not really time travel. More like uhm, dimensional traveling... or something like that."

Raj gave her a brief look of disbelief and she continued, spending the next fifteen minutes telling the whole story from start to finish. Well, maybe only half the story. She left out some of the details of the places she had visited, but kept in all of the really important stuff.

By the time they reached the hospital and parked the car, Raj's jaw was practically hitting his chest and she was worried that he might never speak again because of the shock.

They got out of the car and she stared at him from across the hood. "Come on, Raj, don't go silent again on me now. Please."

"I don't know what to say. I mean, there is hardly a scientist alive who could tell you he hasn't thought about building a time machine, but to actually make one work -"

"Except that it doesn't work. Not really. Not if it's making us both sick. And we can't control it or make it stop."

Raj nodded and they walked together through the automatic doors at the hospital entrance. "Penny, if you pass out here, they're going to take you in to that emergency room too."

"I know. But you have to take care of Sheldon first. He's the only one who can fix this."

"I'll do everything I can but, dude – "

It was as if her brain reacted to the cue, or maybe it was the overwhelming worry, but she knew what was coming next. Her head always felt it first, and her knees began to tremble underneath her so she found the nearest chair and sat down.

Raj had frozen in mid-sentence and sat next to her. "Penny? Penny?"

She wanted to respond, to get him to reassure her that things would be fine, but the pain became too much and she put her head into her hands as everything went dark again.


	3. At the Fork in the Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An average Wednesday. A caramel macchiato. A pair of broken glasses. All of those tiny moments add up, and sometimes they cause Penny to accidentally invent inter-dimensional travel and take Sheldon with her. Those little moments can change the entire course of one's life, places both new and old, moments both good and bad. Will what they see change them forever? If they even get back at all.

  
III.

It was another world, but she knew it wasn't one she wanted to stay in.

Sheldon was gone. Everyone was gone. She sat alone in an empty house and she could just sense that everything had gone wrong.

Penny didn't know what it was. There were no clues as to why she felt this way, she just knew she wanted to leave.

So she waited. And for reasons she would never fully understand, she cried.

*

She left one place as quick as she had arrived. This time the ground was cold and wet beneath her. Her stomach tightened up and she knew at some point she would have to open her eyes, but she didn't want to look.

"Penny…"

She recognized Mary Cooper's voice instantly and even though her head felt like it weighed a thousand pounds she lifted her head to look at her. She was at least ten years older than when Penny had last seen her, maybe closer to fifteen if she had to guess.

"What's going on?"

Mary hunched down and gently put her hand on Penny's shoulder. "Come inside. Your babies need you to be strong for them."

Penny nodded because she understood. The grief was written all over Mary's face. She tried to take a deep breath in but choked on it as the tears began to flow again.

Sheldon was gone. She didn't know the how or the why, but she knew that she felt utterly and completely lost without him.

*

His was not the first face she would have expected to see when she woke up, but there he was trying not to look worried. She was in a hospital bed and had no idea how long she had been here. Penny's voice was raspy as she spoke, "Howard?"

"Hey, how are you feeling?"

"Not good. What are you doing here?"

He inched the plastic chair he was sitting on closer to her bed and spoke in a low voice. "Raj told me not to leave you. If I did, he'd make sure to, well, let's just say he'd get his revenge."

Penny sat up even though it made her head throb to do it. "Sheldon? Where's Sheldon?"

"He should be back from his brain scan by now."

"What? His brain scan?"

"Yeah, he still wasn't awake last I heard. But Raj is with him. He said he promised you he'd stay with Sheldon no matter what."

Penny slid out of bed and realized they had her in one of those annoying hospital gowns. At this point, she was so frantic, she was willing to let the entire hospital see her bare ass, but she still held together the back of the gown anyway. Howard looked at her in confusion as she marched towards the door.

"Where are you going?"

"To find Sheldon. If you follow me, you'll get a great view."

Howard didn't even pause to think about it. Maybe now wasn't the time to think about those things, but Penny figured there were more important things going on than whether Howard got a good look at her ass.

She felt weak and sore but walked down the hallway confidently. Until she realized she had no idea where she was going. So she turned on her heel and back to Howard. "Okay, where down the hallway?"

He motioned towards the right and replied, "Make a right at the corner and two doors down."

She nodded and walked around the corner until she saw Leonard standing right outside a doorway. He was talking on his phone but jumped in surprise when he saw her. "Penny? Are you okay?"

Penny didn't answer and walked right past him into the room. Sheldon was still unconscious and was hooked up to a monitor with a read out of his heart rate and pulse. Raj had kept his promise and was sitting right next to Sheldon's bed so Penny walked to the other side and laid her hand on top of Sheldon's.

"Have they figured out what's wrong?"

Raj looked at her from across Sheldon's still form and shook his head. "Everything looks normal."

He motioned towards Howard and before she even noticed, Howard had pulled a chair over for her to sit in. She gladly took it but refused to let go of Sheldon's hand. She couldn't tear her eyes off of him, not even when Leonard came in and cleared his throat.

"I just talked to Dr. Gablehauser. He said he had no idea what Sheldon was working on."

"No one did."

Howard spoke next with a soft chuckle preceding his words, "He probably was afraid it would get stolen."

Leonard nodded in agreement and stepped further into the room. "He's probably right."

Sheldon's eyes began to move underneath his closed eyelids and Penny squeezed his hand. "Sheldon... come on, Sheldon, wake up. We need you here."

His eyes opened and to Penny, he looked broken. It was one of the scariest things she had ever seen in her life. At least this life anyway.

"Penny..."

"We're at the hospital. You were gone, without me, and I didn't know what else to do."

His head rolled on the pillow behind him to see Raj, Howard and Leonard gathered on the other side of the bed. "Did she tell you?"

Raj nodded and replied, "Yeah. What can we do?"

"I need all of my notes, especially the ones I was working on before I ended up here. And I need to get to the lab."

Leonard stepped forward and interjected, "We can go back to the lab, bring everything here, but you shouldn't leave the hospital."

Sheldon tried to sit up straight but it was obvious that he was weak and his head was still in pain. "I'm perfectly capable."

Penny put her hand on his shoulder and sighed. "No, Sheldon. They can be back here in 45 minutes with everything. You need to stay here."

He noticed her hospital gown and then looked into her eyes. "Penny, we might not have time."

"Well, if you had actually built a time machine that works, we'd have all the time in the world, wouldn't we?"

"And if you had any sense of equilibrium, we wouldn't need all the time in the world."

Things were serious, but sometimes you just had to smile, so she did and was surprised when Sheldon smiled back at her.

"Is it really that serious?"

"The human mind wasn't meant to go through what we've been going through. Not like this. It's too much and too fast. I was so close to stopping it before."

She nodded in understanding and stood up to face the other guys. "Okay, we're getting out of here."

Raj was the first to protest, "But you're the one that called the paramedics to begin with."

"I know. Because I was scared. But right now we don't have time to be scared. We need to get back to the lab and fix this. Raj and Leonard, you help me get Sheldon unhooked and out of here..."

"Are you sure?"

"You said the doctors couldn't find anything wrong with him, so there's no point in staying here. You guys help me and Howard... I need my clothes."

Howard nodded and gave a quick salute as he headed towards the door, "I'm on it."

Within minutes, Sheldon was up, dressed and ready to go. Howard returned with a plastic bag filled with Penny's clothes and she quickly excused herself to the bathroom to change. Both Penny and Sheldon were weak, but with the help of their friends, they were able to make it down the hallway without a doctor or nurse noticing that they were sneaking out.

The ride back to CalTech in Leonard's car was quiet and Penny sat in the back with Sheldon and refused to let go of him. The sudden signs of affection they showed towards each other were clearly off-putting to the other guys, but for them it seemed perfectly natural. In just half of a day they had been through lifetimes together, both good and bad.

They made it to CalTech safely and as Penny and Sheldon reached the door of his lab, he seemed to go weak at the knees again. She tried to help him to a chair but he fell face forward and hit the ground a moment later. Penny tried to catch him but it happened too quick, so she immediately sat on the floor next to him.

The other guys looked towards her for guidance but she just shrugged her shoulders sadly as Sheldon began to convulse on the floor. She wondered if maybe they shouldn't have left the hospital after all.

But most of all, she wondered how they were ever going to stop this if Sheldon couldn't stay here long enough to fix the machine.

She was lifting her hand to wipe a tear from her eye when the pain hit her again too and she slumped to the floor beside him.

*

Everything went too fast this time. It was like blinking rapidly and each time you blink, a new image would appear.

Sometimes they were happy images. Glimpses of things she had already seen, a successful career, a life with Sheldon, a family. These were the images she wanted to keep.

Then there were the ones that burned her eyes. She saw him die, watched the life run out of him. He was too young to leave her, but he left all the same.

She saw pain and anger, devastation and tragedy. It hurt. It hurt her heart and her mind, and she cried out for help but didn't know how anyone would ever be able to hear her.

There was so much pain and she needed it to stop. And what was worse is that she knew Sheldon was going through the same thing, maybe even worse.

*

There was someone sitting next to her with a hand on her shoulder and there was definitely someone lying beneath her. She called Sheldon's name out of instinct but it came out muffled. She realized why when she opened her eyes and saw she had her face buried in his shoulder.

"Penny…"

Her reply came out as, "Nnnnnnghhhhh."

The hand that was on her shoulder nudged her ever so slightly and she rolled on to her side to see that she was looking up at Raj. "How long?"

"Not long. We didn't even have time to move you guys."

She looked at Sheldon who was still out and then slowly sat up and braced herself against the leg of the table behind her. Howard and Leonard were each holding one of Sheldon's notebooks but they had stopped reading them and were now looking at her.

"Did you find anything that could help?"

Leonard flipped a page and then shrugged his shoulders. "I – I don't know honestly."

Penny sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Come on, you guys. All of the IQ points in this room and you can't figure this out? I need all of you to pull together like you never have before."

Howard nodded in silent understanding and began re-attaching circuitry inside the machine and cleaning up the mess that had already been made. He might not be able to make it work the way they needed it to, but he could definitely get it re-assembled quickly especially with Sheldon's detailed sketches and notes next to him.

Penny didn't have the energy to move so she used what muscle she had to pull Sheldon close enough to her that his head was resting in her lap.

"Penny…"

"Yeah, Raj?"

"What's it like?"

She closed her eyes but too many images flooded her thoughts so she opened them again and looked back at Raj. "This last one… It was like having your entire life flash before your eyes, except that it's not your life. It's the lives of fifty different people."

Leonard looked at her again from over the notebook. "So not good?"

Penny smiled weakly and shook her head. "Not good at all. Did you find anything useful in Sheldon's notes?"

"The math all makes sense, but it's so beyond what anyone thought possible. I – I don't know."

"Leonard, I know Sheldon gives you crap all the time about your work, but you are the only one besides him that can do this."

She looked to Raj and cringed slightly, "No offense, Raj."

He smiled at her and nodded. "None taken. Now if you were trying to work on a teleportation device, I'd be your guy."

"You're not working on that, are you?"

His eyes shifted from side to side and he gave her a grin that told the whole story despite his words. "No, not at all."

Penny chuckled softly and then looked back down at Sheldon. This was definitely the longest day of her life. She didn't even know what time it was, but it didn't matter because it felt like she had lived fifty lives in one day.

"Done!"

Penny looked back up at Howard's announcement. He was putting the top of Sheldon's machine back on having reassembled it according to Sheldon's sketches.

Despite the fact that she was weak and sitting on the floor, Penny was still in charge of the situation. She nodded her head towards Leonard and spoke, "Okay, you're up, Hofstadter."

She gave a weak grin and Leonard nodded as he stepped towards the console of the device. He looked at Sheldon's note, then the console, then back to the notes again. One hand went up to nervously smooth down his hair and then he started turning dials and entering numbers on the keypad.

"Okay, I think I've got it, but I don't know… should we stand back? Should the rest of us leave the room?"

Howard took about five steps backwards and looked at Leonard warily. "If you think this is going to make our brains explode, maybe we should leave."

"No, no, I don't think it will have that effect", is what he said, but he looked sideways at Penny and mouthed the words, "I don't know."

She laughed softly and replied, "Just show me how to turn it on and you guys can go wait in the hallway."

Penny was sitting within arm's reach of the switch that Leonard pointed out to her, so she would barely have to move to turn it on. "Just uhh, hit the switch and that should do it. If you need us, just shout."

"Thank you. We'll be fine."

She said it, but she didn't know that it was true. Penny trusted that Leonard and Howard did the best they could but without Sheldon's final word, no one could be sure that it would work.

Raj touched her shoulder reassuringly and she smiled back at him as he stood to leave the room. She waited until they were out of the room with the door shut behind them to look back down at Sheldon again.

He really did look like he was only sleeping and if she didn't know better, that's exactly what she would think. She felt kind of foolish talking to someone who couldn't hear her, but she did it anyway.

"Okay, Cooper, let's hope this works."

She gently touched the side of his face with the tips of her fingers and then lifted her hand up to flip the switch. The console lit up and there was a humming noise that kept building. She waited and shut her eyes tightly as the hum began to build.

Penny didn't even notice that she was holding her breath until the hum died down and the machine turned off.

It had all started with a phone call from Leonard. And it was all about to end with Leonard's help too.

Or maybe not.

She opened one eye, not knowing what to expect, but seeing as how she didn't feel like anything had changed she wasn't surprised to see that nothing had. Both eyes opened and everything was just as it had been.

"Oh. Balls."

Sheldon started to stir and made a noise that sounded a lot like, "Hnnghhhh".

"Sheldon?"

His eyelids moved as if they were trying to open, but he was still in some sort of half-awake state. She used all her strength to pull him up so that she could put her arms around him. He started muttering under his breath and at first it sounded like gibberish, but it became clearer as he continued.

"Settings. Settings are right. But the M-switch needs to be the other direction."

"Sheldon, wake up. I don't know which one that is. I don't know how to do this."

His eyes opened and she breathed a sigh of relief. She expected him to ask why she was embracing him so tightly, but after what they had seen together, even Sheldon seemed to think this was natural. The guy who once didn't know how to hug had now made it seem like the easiest thing in the world.

"Did you let Leonard set it?"

"What?"

"The controls. Did Leonard set it?"

"Yeah. Howard fixed it and Leonard set it. But it didn't work. I don't think."

Sheldon nodded and motioned for her to help him up. Even if he had the strength to stand on his own, Penny didn't want to let him go. So even when he stood, he had his arm around her shoulder and she helped him sit in the chair in front of the console. Not even when she reached for the second chair did she entirely let go, keeping her hand on his shoulder as he looked at the console.

"He did it right."

"What's that?"

"Leonard, he put the right numbers in. Exactly per my specifications."

She waited for a remark about how surprising it was that Leonard showed competency at a task like this, but it didn't come. Perhaps when all of this was over and Sheldon was back to normal, it would though.

"So why didn't it work? I'm assuming it didn't. It just went -", she made a humming noise to imitate the machine and then continued, "- and then nothing."

Sheldon found a dial that was pointing towards his right and then turned it so the arrow was turned to the left. "The M-switch needed to be facing the other direction. We're reversing the process, not trying to start all over again."

"No, definitely don't want that."

"So."

"So... What happens now?"

Sheldon scrunched up his face and leaned in, double checking every button and switch once more. "Well, my mother would say it's time to pray."

Her hand squeezed his arm as she sighed. "And you would say?"

He looked back towards her and though he looked confident enough, he couldn't really manage a smile. "Hang on."

So she did. She moved her hand down and gripped his hand tightly. He didn't flinch at her touch anymore and just squeezed her hand back in response. He continued checking the dials and as he was about to flip the switch, her mind was flooded with thoughts about everything that was still to come. After what they had seen and experienced, she wondered if their relationship was changed forever now. She worried that she would question all of her decisions in hopes that she wouldn't make the wrong one.

But before she could consider the implications, the machine began to hum again, louder than before and it felt like the entire room was vibrating around them. Light filled her vision and she squeezed her eyes shut to block it out. She could hear sparks and hissing noises and she held Sheldon's hand tighter than ever before.

When the noise stopped, she opened her eyes and saw smoke pouring out of the machine. Sheldon began to cough and they both stood and headed towards the door as the room filled with smoke.

She opened the door and lead Sheldon out in to the hallway where the other three guys were waiting anxiously. Raj stepped forward and spoke first, "Are you okay? Did it work?"

Penny let go of Sheldon's hand, not even sure why she had been holding it in the first place, and stared at Raj in confusion. "Raj... you're talking to me. Why are you talking to me?"

"You don't remember."

Penny shook her head and Raj looked to Sheldon. "Dude, what happened in there?"

Sheldon looked at all of them and then back to the lab for a second before setting his gaze back to Raj. "I think I blew up my invention. Why would I do that?"

Penny rubbed her eyes and looked towards Sheldon. "I spilled my coffee in it. So I think _I_ blew it up actually."

"You don't remember anything that happened after you spilled your coffee? Nothing at all?"

The questions came from Leonard and both Sheldon and Penny looked at him and shrugged their shoulders simultaneously.

Penny didn't remember. She didn't even know there was something that she should be remembering. All she really knew was that her head was throbbing dully and she suddenly felt like she wanted to sleep for at least 36 hours straight.

So they went home, and on the way, Sheldon complained about a headache and suspected he had caught some sort of virus. In fact, he wouldn't shut up about it, to the point of annoyance. By the time they reached the fourth floor, she was sick of listening to him and her head was throbbing so much, she could barely see. She didn't even bother to say goodbye to any of them and just headed in to her apartment and collapsed on the bed.

Sleep came quickly, but her dreams were more vivid than they ever had been before. She dreamt of love and marriage, fame and fortune, new life and the end of the world. It was all so real, and yet it couldn't be because no single person could live so many lives at once.

When she woke up, it was sometime late in the next day and though she still didn't understand why, she knew something out of the ordinary had happened the day before.

She was still wearing the clothes she had on yesterday so she crawled out of bed and took a shower. Her dreams kept invading her thoughts as she cleaned up and changed into a fresh pair of shorts and a t-shirt.

Things just felt off. So she walked across the hallway to see if Sheldon felt the same way today. Penny entered without knocking and Sheldon was sitting on the couch, drinking tea and blankly staring at the television.

"Hey..."

He looked towards her and gave her a slight nod. "Hello."

Penny took the spot at the end of the couch and stared him down for a minute before speaking again. "Did you skip work today?"

"Yes. For some reason, I needed more sleep than I normally do. So Leonard told them I was sick."

"Sheldon, what happened yesterday? Because it was noon when I came into your lab. But it was dark when we came home last night."

Sheldon put down his tea and adjusted himself so that he was facing her. "Leonard told me that we had some sort of... event. Caused by the malfunctioning of the device. I'm not sure what the details are entirely, but I - I don't remember any of that."

She could tell he was bothered by his memory loss. The beautiful mind of Sheldon Cooper never forgot a thing, so to have a gap in his memory was akin to losing part of himself. She wondered if he would prefer to lose a leg than part of his mind.

"I don't remember either."

Sheldon didn't respond and they sat together in the silence for a long time. The television was on, but Penny couldn't have told you what show they were watching if her life had depended on it. Neither of them were really watching it anyway.

In the weeks to come, she started to remember. Her dreams weren't just dreams, they were flashes of memories of worlds she had seen, of lives she had lived. It was sometimes a jumble of images and feelings, but it was all there locked inside.

Sheldon tended to avoid her when he was able to. And that was the worst part. When she asked if he had remembered anything yet, he would shake his head and brush it off like it was no big deal.

Raj hadn't stopped talking to her, so at least there was that. The downside was that he kept wanting to know what she remembered and she didn't want to talk about it. The only person she wanted to talk to was Sheldon and he wasn't talking back.

The day he knocked on her door, the familiar knock that she secretly loved to hear, marked almost six weeks since what they had come to refer to as 'The Macchiato Incident'. Penny opened her door and she could tell immediately that he was either nervous, or sick. Or maybe a little bit of both.

"May I come in?"

"Of course." Penny motioned him inside and then shut the door behind him. "Sit down if you want to."

Sheldon walked past her and then turned around to face her again. "I think I'll stand for now."

"Okay, your choice."

Penny rocked back on her heels and waited. He had come to her, so it was his move.

"Penny, I need to ask you something..."

She wanted to come back with a witty retort but his face was so serious that she couldn't muster anything to say back besides, "Go ahead then."

"I'm not really experienced with all of this, so I asked Howard how you do it, but that was a mistake. I was going to ask Leonard, but that's uncomfortable. So Raj told me I should just say... Penny, will you go on a date with me?"

"What?"

"I hope that is an expression of surprise and not that you've lost your hearing. I'd rather not have to say that again."

Penny laughed softly and took a step towards him. "I heard you. I just don't believe it. You've barely been talking to me lately, and now you want to date me?"

"Well, I -"

Realization hit her like a ton of bricks and she couldn't help but point at him and smile brightly. "You _do_ remember! I knew it! That's why you've been avoiding me!"

She wanted to laugh but Sheldon's expression kept her from falling on the floor into a heap of maniacal giggles. He looked as pale as he did on the day of The Macchiato Incident. So her smile faded as she stepped towards him and grabbed his hands with her own.

"Penny," his voice was low and wavered slightly as he spoke, "I saw everything you saw. And more. I - I watched you die. More than once. I'm not used to dealing with -"

"Feelings?"

"Not like that. I just knew that I didn't want to go through that, not like that. But I didn't know why I felt that way."

Penny nodded in understanding. Maybe those feelings had been there all along, there was a reason why so many of those alternate universes lead her to Sheldon. She would never fully comprehend why, but it was the conclusion they had been hurtling towards since the day they met, even if neither of them knew it.

"Sheldon... this isn't because in the world where you win the Nobel Prize is the world where you're married to me?"

He looked towards the floor and then back up, locking eyes with her. "The Nobel Prize is a plus. But you know the real reason. You saw it too."

And when he said they saw it, she knew he meant they felt it. The lives where she felt most content and at peace were the worlds where she was with Sheldon. And he felt the same.

"That was the best one. And what was the worst one?"

His eyes seemed to darken and he winced involuntarily. There was a pause that seemed to last an hour before he answered, "There was one where… I was married to Leslie Winkle."

Penny raised both eyebrows and replied, "You saw me die, more than once, and the worst world was one where you married Leslie Winkle? Sheldon, I saw the apocalypse. There were zombies. That's much worse than you marrying Leslie."

"There are logical reasons as to why an apocalypse might occur, why zombies could actually be real. In fact, I've spent part of my life planning for those exact scenarios. But I can find absolutely no logic to explain why, in any universe, I would marry Leslie Winkle."

Penny looked at him curiously and smiled. She knew it wasn't the worst thing he saw, it was just the worst thing he was willing to talk about. They'd have this conversation someday, when they were both ready to deal with it.

"So you thought, the happy world was the one with Mrs. Penny Cooper, so that meant you should come over here and ask me out on a date?"

"I suppose that was the next logical step."

"Sheldon, all of these universes were created by making one decision over another. How do we even know when we're making the right decision anymore?"

Sheldon shrugged and she moved closer to him, waiting for some sort of brilliant and perfect response. His brow furrowed, then relaxed and he replied, "We don't. But I don't think we're supposed to know what we know."

Penny laughed and rested her forehead on his chest. Sheldon Cooper, the guy who knew everything had found something he wasn't supposed to know or didn't want to know. He tried to build a time machine, but now he didn't want to know the future.  
It was either funny or kind of sweet. Or maybe a little bit of both. Whatever happened now, they could never unsee what they had seen. So Penny decided if Sheldon could let go, so could she. She lifted her head and looked up at him with a smile.

"The answer is yes then. Yes, I will go out on a date with you."

She thought about how much she wanted to kiss him in that moment. But she knew that moment would come, all of those moments were still in their future. They had already lived it, but now she wanted to live it in the right order.

*

He would always be grateful for the caramel macchiato.

Penny would thank Leonard for breaking his glasses, even if Leonard never knew all the reasons why.

*

THE END.


End file.
